For He Himself is our peace, who has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in Himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross by which He put to death their hostility.

A few years back, two farmers who lived on adjoining farms fell into conflict, neither one could really remember why. But ever since it started, things seemed to go from bad to worse. Where once John and Samuel looked after one another - did the chores if the other needed to be gone, helped each other with planting and harvesting, each enjoyed knowing the other was there- something happened and all that changed- some misunderstanding- and the Devil made good use of it. The two didn’t speak, they didn’t wave, they began to exchange “tit for tat” and it just went down hill from there.

One morning there was a knock at John’s door. He opened it to find a man wearing a ball cap with a carpenters’ pencil tucked behind his ear and a well use measuring tape on his belt. “I’m a carpenter and I’m looking for work,” he began. “I’ve got the tools and the know how. Do have any work that needs do’in?”

Looking him over John replied, “Yes, I’ve got a job for you.” Taking the carpenter around to the side of the house John began, “You see that farm across the way. It belongs to my no account neighbor. Look at what he’s done. He knows my kitchen window looks out toward his place. He let this side of his place go unpainted. His weeds are out of control. He abandoned that old combine and tractor we use to share right there on the slope going down to the ditch. Only it isn’t just a ditch any more. Last week he was working with his backhoe up by the river and he says it was an accident but he sent a ‘raging crik’ full of water down carving a gully between us.”

“Well, enough is enough. You want work; well here is what I want you to do. See that pile of lumber. I want you build me a fence, an eight foot high fence so I won’t need to look on his place or him any more. ”

The carpenter listened, looking from the pile of lumber to the other farm and back to John. Nodding he said, “I think I understand the situation. Show me the nails and posthole digger and I will be able to do a job that takes care of the situation.

John showed him where everything was, and then explained he’d be down south working some ground; he’d be gone most the day, but he’d settle up with the carpenter when he got back.

The carpenter set to work among the thorns and bindweed. It was hard work and the day was hot, but he kept after it, clearing away thorns and bindweed, nailing, sawing, digging post holes and carrying the rough and splintered lumber.

It was close to sunset when the carpenter heard John’s pickup coming down the gravel driveway. As John came around the end of the house he heard the carpenter say, “It is finished.”

What met John’s eye didn’t look finished or right at all. What he saw made his eyes go open wide and his jaw drop. There was no eight foot fence. Instead there was a bridge stretching from one side of the gully to the other. It was a good bridge with stout handrails. Before he could cut loose on the carpenter he saw his neighbor coming down the hillside and crossing the bridge.

Before John could cuss him, his one time friend began to speak, “You are quite a guy. After all I’ve done to spite you and get even with you for what I don’t know- I don’t even remember what started us feuding- I’m sure glad you did this. For all I’ve done I’m sure sorry.” With that he stuck out his hand. John stood there for a minute in disbelief- that which only hours before had been an impossible situation had been bridged. He took his neighbor’s hand and shook it, years of misunderstandings and hard feelings fell away.

They turned to hear the carpenter putting his tools in the back of his pickup.

“No, wait!” they shouted. “I’m sure we can find more work for you.”

“I’d love to stay but I need to be moving on. There is one thing you could do for me though.”

“Name it,’ they said.

“Tell others what was done here.” And with that he was gone.

I just love stories like that. Now a few of you may be saying nice story Pastor, but I’ve got real issues with this person or that person. What he or she did to me was hurtful and real and has impacted my life. It is going to take more that a “folk’sie” story to bridge that gulf of hurt and pain. To that I would say, “I agree.” But maybe that story will help us if we tweak it just a little.

You see we were once, a long time ago, friends with God, until Satan and sin entered the picture. Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man and death came through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned. (Rm 5.12) That created a breach between us and God. In our sinfulness we began do all manner of things that were offensive to God: we parked rusted out shells of misspent lives where he could see them. We allowed the places where we lived to become run down and in need of paint and repair; some of us painted the houses of our lives obnoxious and offensive colors and some of us held raucous parties. Oh, to other sinners our places and lives may look good enough to be envied, but to the holy and just God they did and do not. Where some of us were obnoxious, others quietly went about worshipping other gods. Some of us went down to the canyon that separated us from the one true God and figured when the time comes we could somehow jump the chasm that separates us.

Never in all of this did we realize that the bindweed and thistle of sin was over taking us. St Paul writes it this way to the Ephesians, As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you use to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air (that is Satan) the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its sinful desires and thoughts. (Eph 2.1-3)

We did everything that would justify God building a pretty tall fence. He had every reason to leave us to die in our sins but that is where God is different. He sent His Son, the carpenter to bridge the chasm between us and Him. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but to save world through Him. (Jn 3.17) Listen to that again, The Father did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world that would have been easy enough to do- truly we’ve all sinned, but He sent the Son to save world through Him. The Son came as the Son of a carpenter. Like the carpenter in the story He “understood the situation.” He came and He went to work.

Now there are a lot of things we might want Jesus to do, but He did what was most important. He went to work with rough lumber and nails, and He built a bridge that spans the chasm between us and God. The bridge cost us nothing, but it cost Jesus everything. He died building that bridge. He gave up His life and that bridge is splattered with His blood.

Jesus knew the cost of building that bridge. He knew without the shedding of blood there could be no reconciliation with a Holy God. We’d like to think we could somehow make it all up to God, but we can’t. Jesus, being fully God, knew we couldn’t make it up to God and being fully man He allowed His blood to be spilled to wash away our sins. With His last ounce of strength he said, “It is finished.” It was and is finished. We are forgiven, that bridge is all about being forgiven and about getting a new start, getting ‘do-overs’.

Yet left to our own devices we’d still not understand that bridge and why it is so important. Left to our own devices we’d go on living sinful, decadent, self-absorbed lives, but Jesus didn’t go to all that work and pay such a great price to have it all go for not. By and through the working of the Holy Spirit who is at work in us by Word and Sacrament, we come to understand the Father and Son’s great love for us. It is that love that transforms us- bringing us to cherish the bridge, to look forward to one day crossing that bridge, to wanting to hear stories about this carpenter Jesus who three days after dying was raised again to life, and by all of this the Holy Spirit creates in us the desire to clean up our lives.

Now all around us are people who don’t know about the Carpenter and the bridge. They don’t know the great lengths that the Father and Son went to to restore relationships with all of us, and they won’t know unless someone tells them. Jesus has commissioned us to tell them about what happened here. Amen

Now a few of you may be saying nice story Pastor but I’ve got real issues with this person or that person. What he or she did to me was hurtful and real and has impacted my life. It is going to take more that a “folk’sie” story to bridge that gulf of hurt and pain.

To that I would say, “I agree.” Some of you are living with some real big hurts. I think about what it would take for me to forgive a terrorist for launching a rocket that killed a family member or what it would take to forgive someone for getting a family member started on “meth” or what it might take to forgive infidelity or what about those who have been abandoned by friends and family. There are some pretty big hurts out there. Maybe we ought to come back to the bridge next week…